


Nor Peace in Death

by Drag0nst0rm



Series: Through All the Ages [2]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Maedhros is not in a good place right now, Suicidal Thoughts, That Maedhros is not happy about, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 16:33:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16350197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm
Summary: Maedhros is also thrown back in time.He has many feelings about this, none of them good.





	Nor Peace in Death

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU of my last AU inspired by mmarycontrary on Tumblr.

He had stepped into the fire anticipating darkness. Cessation. Cold.

That was the best his mind could conjure when imagining the Void. Failing that, he had expected a call to Mandos’s Halls where he would be judged and locked away. Perhaps, if Namo was merciful, it would be with his brothers. Even if he was not, he would at least be in a world of grey with nothing more to cause hurt.

He had not expected to wake up in bed without even a twinge of pain in his hand.

For a moment, he laid perfectly still, barely breathing, daring to allow himself to imagine that he was back in Aman. Soon, one of his little brothers would come running in to wake him, or he would hear one of his parents call -

“Maedhros, I’m sorry to wake you, but - “

Maedhros. Not Maitimo.

Maglor hurried over to him. “Maedhros, are you well?”

Maedhros forced his eyes open to see what precise moment of the slow descent down he had found himself in.

Stone walls. Rescued wall hangings, one of which had a slight scorch mark on it, barely visible.

Amon Ereb.

Maedhros forced himself from the bed, fell to his knees, grabbed the chamber pot, and threw up whatever precious food had been served the night before.

Maglor was beside him in an instant, holding back his hair, and singing a soothing song until Maedhros was finally done retching.

“The twins?” Maedhros croaked as soon as he could. A safe question. There were always twins at Amon Ereb. Maglor’s response would tell him just what he was being forced to relive.

“Amrod and Amras are already up and preparing the horses for their patrol,” Maglor assured him. “They won’t have heard.”

“I need to see them.” It was nearly certainly a bad idea as he doubted very much he could maintain control if he did, but it was go find them or sink back into the bed and beg Namo to end it already, and trying to end it hadn’t worked so well last time.

He had tried. He had somehow, impossibly, failed.

Maedhros was used to failure, and as tired as he was, the iron will that had been forged even harder on Thangorodrim was reasserting itself now.

Maglor was looking at him with open concern. He hadn’t been so open since Maedhros had insisted they send the twins away. He had closed himself off then, going through the motions till Maedhros had finally asked too much -

But no. That hadn’t happened yet.

“Of course,” Maglor said. “But let’s get you cleaned up first. They won’t leave without seeing you, not after last time. That’s what I came to wake you up for, in fact, though I was sorry to do it. I know the dreams have been worse of late.”

They’ll get even worse than this, Maedhros almost told him, but he stopped himself just in time and let Maglor wipe his face and hand him his clothes.

And none shall release us, he thought bitterly. Not even death itself.

He wondered if he would only have to gain Elwing’s Silmaril to fulfill the Oath now.

It was like wondering whether it would be quicker to fly to the Sun or the Moon. His task was impossible. How impossible was a matter that concerned him barely at all.

But he kept moving, kept going, because he knew now that was the only choice he had.

 

Two weeks after that, Maglor came stumbling into his room in the dark watches of the night. Maedhros was still up, reading reports by candlelight and trying to figure out a way to save at least someone from this trap of Doom.

“Maedhros,” he said, swaying. “Maedhros.”

Maedhros glanced up. This did not sound like Maglor’s usual attempts to get him to go to bed.

Maglor’s eyes were wild. His brother stumbled forward and grabbed his shoulder. “You’re real,” he said. “You’re real.” Tears started rolling down his cheeks. “You’re real, you’re real, you’re real . . . “ He sank to his knees and buried his head in Maedhros’s shoulder. “Don’t leave me again,” he pleaded, and Maedhros knew.

“I won’t,” he said helplessly, knowing it might be a lie. “I won’t. Don’t cry, ‘Laure, please don’t cry.”

But Maedhros’s own iron control, already rusted almost to nothing, was already cracking, and he was crying too.

 

Amrod and Amras did not wake up.

“Maybe because they didn’t hold a Silmaril?” Maglor suggested.

“Maybe because they’re less cursed,” Maedhros said, pressing a hand to his burning eyes. Sleep was becoming ever more difficult to obtain. “They weren’t around for me to drag them into a fourth kinslaying.”

“Maedhros . . . “

“Never mind,” Maedhros said wearily. “What does it matter? We should be thankful that they at least do not know their end.”

“The end is not fixed,” Maglor said firmly.

Maedhros thought of the cold iron of the Doom of Mandos, but he maintained the sense not to say, _Isn’t it?_

 

The hardest part was keeping up the charade that he still had a little hope left, but he’d been trying to keep up that charade the first time around too, so if there was a little more despair in his eyes or weariness in his movements, no one noticed it, not even his youngest brothers.

No one save Maglor, who seemed afraid to leave him alone.

Maglor need not have feared. Maedhros was not eager to seek another way to die.

Next time, he might wake up in Angband.

 

Maglor poured over the letter they sent to Elwing. Apparently he thought that if he got the wording just right, the young queen might give in.

Maedhros had no such hope. At his most optimistic, he thought perhaps he could get the Ambarussa through the fighting. The rest of the time, he spent his hope on the thought that if he failed in that, at least Elrond and Elros might bring some comfort to Maglor again.

When the letter actually received a favorable response and a team of ambassadors with it there to negotiate a deal, Maedhros spent the whole of negotiations convinced it was some ploy for spies or assassins. It could not be as simple as different wording to the letter. It could not.

If it was, then that if he had simply tried harder . . . If he had simply tried longer . . . 

He avoided Maglor’s triumphant looks and waited until he could excuse himself to go be violently sick.

Amrod found him curled up against the cool stone of the bedroom wall. Maedhros tried to sit up, but dizziness and Amrod’s hand forced him down again.

“It’ll be alright,” Amrod assured him quietly. “Don’t think we haven’t noticed how ill you’ve been lately, but it’ll be alright. Once we’ve gotten one Silmaril, the Oath will leave us alone for awhile.”

Once, the Oath had felt like fire in his mind. Now it felt like an iron leash, dragging him forward into the dark.

Maedhros could hardly breathe.

“It’ll be alright,” Amrod said again, and the warmth of his brother pressed against him was enough to push the dark enough away that he could breathe.

The Doom might claim them all eventually, but for right now, three of his brothers were still here.

 

Maedhros had been prepared for many things from the delegation supposedly bringing the Silmaril, treachery foremost among them.

He had not been expecting to see Elrond and Elros, somewhat changed but unmistakably them, among them. Elrond and Elros as _adults._

He accepted the Silmaril in a daze and almost forgot to flinch, but it didn’t burn. Instead, the Oath’s noose loosened and jostled uncertainly, as if it was uncertain whether it ought to be lifted entirely or not.

He didn’t blame it.

He looked to Maglor to make sure he hadn’t been driven mad after all, but Maglor’s eyes were locked on the children.

Well. Not the children, anymore.

Maglor’s songs were wild with joy, and neither of them had to look at the other to slip away after Elrond and Elros when the two finally went to bed. The Ambarussa could play chief hosts for awhile.

Maglor opened his mouth to call out after them, but his voice must have failed him. He sent a pleading look at Maedhros.

“Elrond? Elros?” Maedhros called because he had failed his brothers too often to do so with such a simple thing now.

The two of them turned automatically, and even in the moonlight, he could see their eyes were wide.

“How - ?” Elros started to say.

“I could ask the same of you,” Maedhros said wryly, “considering that you are supposed to be about six years old right now.” If they had travelled as he and Maglor had, what was the common factor? Why were they not in their own younger bodies?

But there was a lightness in his chest now that he had not dared to trust to before. The children were here and safe, and so were the Ambarussa. The Silmaril was here and their’s, and there had been no blood shed for it. Things had changed, and they had not been the only ones changing things, apparently, so perhaps a different letter had not been all that was needed after all. Perhaps their good fortune was from the work of the twins, little deserved though it was.

Elrond, for his part, was looking at Maglor with over bright eyes. “I did tell you that I wouldn’t let that be the last time I saw you,” he said.

Maglor reached out a tentative hand and placed it gently on Elrond’s shoulder, like he was afraid it would fall through. “Clearly, I should have listened,” he said with a shaking smile. “I suspect letting myself get dragged to Imladris would have caused far less trouble.”

“Or Numenor, for that matter,” Elros grumbled and threw himself at Maglor like the boy he should be instead of the full grown man he so clearly was. “Stop being so elvish and hug him already, Elrond. You too, Maedhros, we didn’t do all that wrangling with Mother’s council just to get stared at.”

“That must have been awkward,” Maedhros said blankly. “What did you tell her?”

Elros groaned. “Technically, nothing that wasn’t true except for ridiculous fake names that are apparently also real names because my brother has no imagination. By implication, I pretty sure she made the same mistake you used to on bad nights. Awkward doesn’t begin to cover it. Get over here. You owe us this.”

That and far more than that.

And holding close those he had thought lost to Doom and folly was hardly a high price to pay.


End file.
